came in the Transvaal Government and virtually said: 'Give us the
country and we will maintain order; if owners of the land object we will
put them down as rebels; we will take their land as we have taken
Mapoch's, and apprentice their children. You have got tired of these
quarrels, leave them to us; we will put a stop to them by protecting the
robbers who have taken the land.'

"That practically is the demand. Are you prepared to grant it? I for my
part say, that rather than grant it I would (a voice in the
meeting--'fight!') yes, if necessary, fight; but I will do my utmost to
persuade my fellow countrymen to make the declaration that, if
necessary, force will be used, which, if it was believed in, would make
it unnecessary to fight.

"The Transvaal Boers know our power, and the Delegates know our power.
It is our will that they doubt. If I could not persuade my fellow
countrymen that they meant to show that they would never grant such
demands as these, I would rather do--what I should otherwise oppose with
all my might,--withdraw from South Africa altogether. I am not so proud
of our extended Empire as to wish to preserve it at the cost of England
refusing to discharge her duties. If we have obligations we must meet
them, and if we have duties we must fulfil them; and I have confidence
in the English people that first or last they will make our Government
fulfil its obligations. But there is much difference between first and
last; last is much more difficult than first, and more costly than
first. The cost increases with more than geometrical progression. There
are people who say, (but the British nation will not say it;) 'leave us
alone, let these Colonists and Boers and Natives whom we are tired of,
fight it out as best they can; let us declare by our deeds, or rather by
our non deeds that we will not keep our promise nor fulfil our duty.'
Such a course as that would be as extravagantly costly as it would be
shamefully wrong. This _laissez faire_ policy tends to make things go
from bad to worse until at last by a great and most costly effort, and
perhaps by a really bloody and destructive war, we shall be obliged to
do in the end at a greater cost, and in a worse way, that which we could
do now. It is not impossible to do it now. A gentleman in the meeting
said it was a question of fighting. I do not believe this; but though
born a Quaker, I must admit that if there be no other way by which we
can protect our allies and prevent the ungrateful desertion of those who
helped us in the time of need, than by the exercise of force, I say
force must be exercised."

Readers will remark how extraordinarily prophetic are these words of Mr.
Forster, spoken in 1883.

"This morning has been put into my hands the reply of the Transvaal
delegates to the Aborigines Protection Society. I read it with a certain
amount of astonishment and of comfort too,--of astonishment that men
should be found possessing such a depth of Christianity, such sentiments
of religion, such love for veracity, and such regard for the human race
as to put on record and to sign with their own hands such a denial of
the atrocities and cruelties which have been recorded against them for
so many years. It is most blessed to contemplate the depth of their
religious sentiments; they express the love they bear to our Lord and
Saviour, and their desire to walk in His steps. All this is very
beautiful, and, _if true_, is the greatest comfort ever given us
concerning the native races. I will take that document as a promise for
the future that they will act upon these principles, that they are
Christians, and that they will act on Christian principles, and respect
the rights of the natives. That is perhaps the most generous view to
take of the matter; but, nevertheless, we shall be inclined to doubt
until we